Edible, with conditions
Wood blewit
Lepista nuda
The character that does the work
Lilac gills and stem in autumn leaf litter, with a pale pink spore print.
The specimen sheet, in examination order
01Cap
5 to 12 cm, lilac to violet-brown when fresh, fading to tan from the centre, smooth and slightly greasy.
02Underside
Crowded gills, distinctly LILAC when young, fading buff.
03Stem, and the base
Stout, fibrous, lilac, often with a swollen base bound into the leaf litter.
04Flesh, cut
Pale lilac, thick.
05Spore print
Pink to salmon
Pale pinkish-buff, which is worth confirming, because pink-spored mushrooms include the seriously toxic Entoloma.
How to take one06Where it grows
Leaf litter, compost heaps, hedgerows and garden beds, often in rings, and fruiting late into frost.
07Smell
Sweet and floral, often described as perfumed.
When to look
Typically Sep to Dec in the northern hemisphere. Fruiting swings by weeks with rainfall and by a month or more with latitude, so this is when to look rather than when it will be there.
Europe and North America.
What is worth knowing about it
Good, common, and fruiting when almost nothing else does. The conditions are two: it must be well cooked, since raw or lightly cooked blewits upset a lot of people, and it must be separated from the lilac Cortinarius species by their rusty spore print and cobwebby veil. A purple mushroom is not automatically a blewit.
Confused with
- Cortinarius species, several of which are lilac and some of which destroy kidneys
In the kitchen
Cook thoroughly, never raw, and try a small portion the first time even once you are confident of the identification. The colour largely cooks out.
The techniques, and why they workThis page tells you what to check. It does not tell you the mushroom in your hand is that species, and it cannot. If you are not certain, do not eat it. If you have already eaten something and feel unwell, contact a poison centre and keep an uncooked specimen.
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